Village Green tipped to fetch $5m at auction

The hotel, which is expected to fetch around $5million when it goes under the hammer on July 14, has undergone renovations worth more than $1million since 2002 when it was bought by the Haslan family.

Until recently, the family also owned the Greenhouse Tavern in Coffs Harbour and the South Tweed Tavern in Tweed Heads, but they were bought out by Woolworths.

Part-owner Steve Haslan said the family was taking a break.

"We weren't planning on selling up but Woolies offered us an extraordinary amount of money ... and that just left us with the one small hotel and with our economy of scale it just wasn't feasible to continue," Mr Haslan said. "If one of the family lived in Grafton we'd certainly hang onto it, but as it is we're all up or down the coast so it's made it difficult."

Mr Haslan said the family would be sad to sell the Village Green, but looked forward to taking a break.

"It will be sad to let it go. I mean, we put well over $1million into renovations out there ? we spent more on renovations than we did on the hotel," he said. "We really built it up and we turned the turnover right around and we're really proud of that fact. But you'll be seeing our (family) name in the hospitality industry in the future, that's for sure."

Terry Board, from TJ Board and Sons Hotel Brokers, said there would be local and interstate interest in the sale.